The House Ethics Committee on Wednesday split along partisan lines on releasing a potentially damaging report about Rep. Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump’s pick to head up the Department of Justice.
After a two-hour meeting, Committee Chair Michael Guest told reporters there was no agreement to make the report public. And while Guest would not say if committee members even took a vote on whether to release it, the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Susan Wild, told reporters the committee did vote on that question — it’s just that the effort failed along partisan lines, with Democrats voting to release the investigation and Republicans voting to keep the report concealed.
But according to two sources, the committee agreed to finish the report, which apparently still hasn’t been completed.
Wild said the Ethics Committee would vote again on releasing the report on Dec. 5.
Trump’s selection of Gaetz triggered a firestorm on Capitol Hill last week that only intensified when it was reported that the nomination came days before the House Ethics Committee was expected to release a report on its investigation into Gaetz.
Upon nomination, the Florida congressman abruptly resigned, and the Ethics Committee no longer had jurisdiction to censure him. Rep. Wild told reporters has expressed support for releasing the report, pointing to some precedent to make it public even after a member resigns, but Speaker Mike Johnson has been vocal about his opposition to that idea.
Gaetz has been under scrutiny since late 2020, when the Department of Justice started investigating claims that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl and trafficked her across state lines. The DOJ ultimately declined to prosecute, but the trickle of information around Gaetz hasn’t slowed since.
NOTUS reported in September that court filings placed Gaetz at a party where his encounter with the then-17-year-old girl would have occurred.
The House ethics investigation also began in 2021, but it was postponed to 2023, as the DOJ conducted a criminal investigation. The Ethics Committee only resumed its investigation when the DOJ announced it was declining to prosecute.
In June of this year, the committee said it had spoken with more than a dozen witnesses, issued 25 subpoenas and reviewed thousands of pages of documents as part of its investigation. Through the course of those proceedings, they reported finding additional allegations that they wanted to review.
The Ethics Committee was investigating him for sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and sharing inappropriate images or videos on the House floor.
Gaetz has consistently denied any wrongdoing and said last week that his decision to resign from Congress was to facilitate a speedier replacement of him through a special election in Florida. Though many members of Congress have expressed interest in seeing the report, only members of the House Ethics Committee have so far been authorized to see it.
Some members of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee — which leads the confirmation process — expressed interest in seeing the report for the additional information it would provide the panel as they consider whether or not the Senate should confirm Gaetz. Even if the report never lands on their desk officially, some, like Sen. John Kennedy, anticipate a leak will give them access to it regardless, per an ABC News report.
“That said, we all know what Washington is like. It leaks like a wet paper bag and I am not going to faint with surprise, I’m not predicting it, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the report leaked,” he said.
Earlier Wednesday, Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin and other Democrats on the committee requested that the FBI provide the Senate with the complete evidentiary file on its investigation into Gaetz’s alleged sex trafficking of a minor.
“The grave public allegations against Mr. Gaetz speaks directly to his fitness to serve as the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government,” the letter said.
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Violet Jira is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. Reese Gorman is a reporter at NOTUS.